Holistic Engagement

Transformative Social Work Education in the 21st Century

Edited by Loretta Pyles and Edited by Gwendolyn Adam

Academic/professional organizations and associations that may be especially interested in the book: —Council on Social Work Education —Society for Spirituality and Social Work —Baccalaureate Program Directors —Center for Contemplative Mind in Society —Mind and Life Institute —SUNY Contemplative Network —National Association of Social Workers —Group for the Advancement of Doctoral Education (GADE - social work) —Australian Association of Social Workers —Canadian

Association for Social Work Education —British Association for Social Workers —ACOSA - Association for Community Organization and Social Administration —SSWR - Society for Social Work Research —Global Partnership for Transformative Social Work Professional conferences at which book should be displayed/publicized: —Annual Program Meeting, Council on Social Work Education —Annual Meeting of the North American Council for Spirituality in Social Work —NASW Annual

Conference —Annual International Conference of the Center for Mindfulness (UMass Medical) —Mind and Life International Symposium for Contemplative Studies —Social Welfare Action Alliance

Critical appraisal of contemporary social work education offering a way forward through a new model focusing on pedagogies of holistic engagement.

Case studies related to undergraduate and graduate, as well as micro and macro practice.

Innovative model for evolving social work education to a new level.

Challenge to the existing social work education paradigm with international collection of authors weighing in.

Innovative concepts and definitions to articulate complicated aspects of social work practice and education.

Holistic Engagement

Transformative Social Work Education in the 21st Century

Edited by Loretta Pyles and Edited by Gwendolyn Adam

Description

This text offers innovation and a call to action for educators — engage fully to engage students fully. With stories from the classroom, Holistic Engagement invites and challenges social work, human services and counseling educators to seek meaning in their methods and content in the processes of teaching. Empirically grounded, the authors propose a new model for advancing pedagogy to draw from many ways of knowing and wisdom across traditions. Through rich analysis of globalization, higher education and the social work profession, as well as first person accounts, they co-create a story of holistic pedagogies being employed across the globe. Aiming toward transformative social work practice, the authors discuss the ways that they engage with the whole person (body, mind, heart, culture and spirit) and reveal how such participatory pedagogies strengthen presence, attunement, empathy, professional self-care and the integrative capabilities of social work students and human service professionals. Drawing from a wide range of literature and traditions, from Freire's critical pedagogy to the neuroscience of mindfulness, these engaging essays have much to offer both seasoned and new social work educators, while creating an integrative and realistic conceptual home for them.

The authors discuss the uses of theatre, the arts, ritual, mindfulness, critical dialogue, yoga and many other methods that upend the traditional social work classroom. These approaches are used at the undergraduate and graduate levels in a range of courses, including policy, theory and practice. The auto-ethnographical nature of many of the essays will invite educators to reflect on their own pedagogies as they consider the rewards and risks of going beyond the cognitive and engaging the whole person.

Holistic Engagement

Transformative Social Work Education in the 21st Century

Edited by Loretta Pyles and Edited by Gwendolyn Adam

Table of Contents

Part I: Theoretical and Empirical Foundations of Holistic Engagement Chapter 1: Educating Transformative Social Workers: The Case for Holistic Pedagogies Loretta Pyles and Gwendolyn J. Adam Chapter 2: A New Model for Holistic Engagement: A Foundation for Social Work Pedagogies Gwendolyn J. Adam and Loretta Pyles Part II: Dialogue, Participation and Critical Pedagogy Chapter 3: Learning in Community: A Transformative Healing Educational Model for Teaching Community Organizing Terry Mizrahi, Esperanza Martell, Kate Cavanagh, and Allison Weingarten Chapter 4: "By the End of The Term, You Will Have Gained Power in the Classroom and I Will Have Lost None: " The Pedagogical Value of Discomfort & Vulnerability in the Teaching of Community Practice Steve Burghardt Chapter 5: Conversation and Dialogue in Social Work Education By Benjamin Shepard Chapter 6: A Deliberate Pedagogy: Introducing the Hidden Curriculum, Social Pedagogy and the Common Third Mette Christiansen Part III: Theater, Arts and the Human Spirit Chapter 7: Mimesis: A Theory for Holistic Engagement Phil Dybicz Chapter 8: Improvisation: A Practice for Praxis Uta Walter Chapter 9: Teaching to the Holistic Self: A Case Study of a Critical Social Work Classroom Juliana Svistova, Lara Bowen, and Meera Bhat Part IV: Mindfulness and Integrative Social Work Chapter 10: There Is A Path. You Are On It. It Does Lead Somewhere. David Pettie Chapter 11: Is Mindfulness Value Free? Tip Toeing through the Mindfield of Mindfulness Robyn Lynn, Jo Mensinga, Beth Tinning, Kelly Lundman Chapter 12: Promoting Integrative Mind-Body-Spirit Practice to Advance Holistic Social Work Education Salome Raheim and Jack J. Lu Chapter 13: Pedagogy for an Integrative Practice: Experiential Unity Theory and Model Alyson Quinn Chapter 14: Re-Constructing Social Work Education: The Path Forward for Holistic Pedagogies Loretta Pyles and Gwendolyn J. Adam

Holistic Engagement

Transformative Social Work Education in the 21st Century

Edited by Loretta Pyles and Edited by Gwendolyn Adam

Author Information

Loretta Pyles, PhD, MA, is Associate Professor in the School of Social Welfare at the State University of New York at Albany. She is an engaged scholar concerned with transformative social change and holistic social work practice and pedagogy. Her scholarship has centered on the ways that individuals, organizations and communities resist and respond to poverty, violence and disasters in a policy context of neoliberal global capitalism and social welfare retrenchment. She is a certified yoga instructor and utilizes mindfulness and embodied learning in her pedagogy, both in the classroom and in the community.

Gwendolyn J. Adam, PhD, MSW, LICSW, is an Associate Professor at Central Connecticut State University, School of Education and Professional Studies. With a focus on mindful and experiential leadership, accountability in practice and education, and interdisciplinary teamwork, Dr. Adam has developed training curricula, a national strategic plan, competency assessment models and community-based services. She is committed to living and being fully, imperfectly, and to promoting compassionate presence.

Contributors:

Allison Weingarten, LMSW, is Program Director at Queens Community House. She runs an after-school program for elementary aged children in Queens. Allison leads a staff team to promote social and academic development with the participants, staff members and families through programming focused on literacy, arts, science, math, music, team sports, dance, group work and community engagement.

Alyson Quinn, BSW, MSW, is Instructor at UBC School of Social work, Group therapist, Individual and Couples +. Alyson Quinn has been practicing as a Social worker for the past 27 years in South Africa, London, England and Vancouver, Canada as an individual, couples and group therapist. She is an author of 3 books published by Rowman and Littlefield namely Experiential Unity theory and model: reclaiming your soul, Reclaim your soul your path to healing and When the river wakes up. She is currently an instructor at UBC school of social work.

Juliana Svistova, BSW, MSW, is a part-time lecturer and a PhD candidate at the School of Social Welfare at UAlbany. Her primary research focus is on issues of participation in social development policy and practice, as well as pedagogic settings.

Lara Bowen, BFA, MSW, attended the BFA in Acting program at SUNY Purchase and received her MSW from SUNY Stony Brook with a specialization in Student-Community Development. Ms. Bowen is currently pursuing her PhD in Social Welfare at University at Albany, with an emphasis on the study of applied theatre for social change.

Meera Bhat, BA, MA, is a PhD student at the School of Social Welfare at UAlbany. Her dissertation research will focus on women's experiences of participation and empowerment in emerging social entrepreneurship practices in India. Her prior experience is in participatory research, collaborative training and community organizing on issues of youth as well as women's health and micro-finance. She is interested in the participation as a means of empowering individuals in personal, societal, and political spaces and building democratic institutions that enable people to realize their capabilities. Bhat has been involved in conducting classes, curriculum development and research on holistic and experiential learning for social work students and community organizers, internationally.

Salome Raheim, PhD, ACSW, is Dean and Professor at the University of Connecticut School of Social Work. A meditation, yoga, and reiki practitioner, she focuses her teaching and scholarship on culturally competent practice and integrative mind-body-spirit approaches to health and healing.

Jack J. Lu, LCSW, is a PhD candidate and adjunct faculty at the University of Connecticut School of Social Work. His research interests include health access for Cambodian Americans, community-based participatory research, eliminating health disparities, integrative mind-body-spirit social work, and social action to empower marginalized populations. He has practiced as a clinical social worker since 2003.

Phillip Dybicz, PhD, LCSW, Assistant Professor, Department of Social Work, Valdosta State University. Dr. Dybicz is a social work historian, with specialization in the history of the intellectual thought of the profession. Much of his work focuses upon the contributions of postmodern thought to current social work practice.

Beth Tinning, BSW, has been employed in the human services since 1991. She has worked in organisations responding to domestic violence, sexual assault, HIV/AIDS and homelessness. From 2007 until 2014, Beth was a lecturer in the Department of Social Work and Human Services, James Cook University. In January 2015, Beth returned to direct service delivery and is employed as the Child & Youth Counsellor at the Cairns Regional Domestic Violence Service.

Esperanza Martell, BA, MSW, teaches Community Organizing and is an advisor at the Hunter College Silberman School of Social Work. Esperanza specializes in organizational development, team building, leadership skills, conflict resolution, diversity training, and alternative healing. Her life work has been as a political activist working with organizations and individual's to promote anti-oppression, sustainability, the transformation of capitalism and healing in community. Esperanza holds a BA from City University of New York and an MSW from Hunter College Silberman School of Social Work.

Mette Christiansen, MSW, practiced as a social pedagogue in Denmark before coming to the United States. After working several years as a direct care worker, she obtained her MSW and now is the Director of the Concentration in Human Services in the Department of Sociology at SUNY New Paltz. Mette's teaching is inspired by critical pedagogy and her extensive international practice experience working with various populations. Areas of research and professional interest include professionalization and educational socialization of human services and social workers and international social welfare.

Kelly Lundman, B.Ed, M.Ed, BSW, is currently employed as a Defence Social Worker at Defence Community Organisation by the Department of Defence. She is currently transitioning to exploring her ideas in literary fiction.

Jo Mensinga, BSW, MA (research), IYTA, Jo's postgraduate research and publications have included a focus on narrative research methodologies, field education, teaching approaches, career choice in social work and the impact of embodied practices such as yoga in social work. Publications include: 'The feeling of being a social worker: Including yoga as an embodied practice' in Social Work Education (2011) and 'She let out a burp and got rid of it!: Learning from a social workers stories in mental health conversations' a chapter in Francis, La Rosa, Shankaran & Rajeev (Eds.), Social work practice in mental health: Cross-cultural perspectives (2014).

Robyn Lynn ADCW, BA (Soc.Sc.), M.Soc.Pol, AIWCW, Robyn's interest in mindfulness began over 10 years ago when she took up a Buddhist form of meditation for her own well-being. Her personal experience prompted an exploration of how she could integrate the practice of meditation and the concept of mindfulness into her teaching, which led to publishing "Mindfulness in Social Work Education," in Social Work Education (2009). In her attempts to implement mindfulness into social work education she encountered a number of challenges and ethical dilemmas that she has researched with colleagues and practitioners in relation to their experiences and understandings of mindfulness in the ethical and value context of social work and the implications of this for practice and curriculum.

Terry Mizrahi, PhD, is a professor, Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College. She chairs the Community Organizing, Planning, & Development. She co-chairs the national Special Commission to Advance Macro Practice in Social Work. She is a founding member of the Association for Community Organizing & Social Administration and was past president of the National Association of Social Workers.

Kate Cavanagh, LMSW, has worked at Fordham University's Dorothy Day Center for Service and Justice in the service learning program and for various non-profits in community programs. Kate is a mother who is part of a big extended Italian and Irish-American family, grew up in Northwest New Jersey, earned her BASW at Fordham University, and completed her MSW at Hunter College concentrating in Community Organizing in 2006. While at Hunter, Kate attended the Undoing Racism and Community Organizing training for the first time and joined the facilitation team as a Paulo Freire Methodology popular educator at the Brecht Forum.

David Pettie, LCSW, ACSW, works at the SUNY School of Social Welfare and is the Assistant Director of Field Education. Mr. Pettie is currently exploring professional identity formation with beginning social workers and the role of mindfulness and contemplative practices within this process. Additionally, he is focusing on socialization toward masculinity, its impact on the capacity of men to be relational and the implications for a female dominated helping profession.

Steve Burghardt, MSW, PhD, is a professor of social work at the Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College-CUNY. His most recent book is Macro Practice in Social Work for the 21st Century: Bridging the Macro-Micro Divide (2nd. Edition, Sage Publications).

Benjamin Shepard, PhD, LMSW, works as an Associate Professor of Human Services at City Tech/CUNY by day. He is also the author/editor of many books, including Community Projects as Social Activism, and the forthcoming Rebel Friendships: "Outsider" Networks and Social Movements.

Holistic Engagement

Transformative Social Work Education in the 21st Century

Edited by Loretta Pyles and Edited by Gwendolyn Adam

From Our Blog

In the first week of March, hundreds of social work educators from across the US will come together in New Orleans to discuss the future of social work education at the Association of Baccalaureate Social Work Program Directors (BPD) conference. It is clear that the stakes for social work education are higher now than ever before. For my students who are working in field placements, there is a growing sense of dissonance.